Girard College

Posting about Laurel Hill cemetery yesterday has Philadelphia on my mind.  I spent six years there and always had somewhat of a love-hate relationship with the city; it could be a tough place in many ways, and certainly getting mugged at a train station in the middle of the day did nothing to help that impression.  What I miss most is the history; walk down just about any block in Philly and you'll stumble across something of historical or cultural significance.  Chicago seems by contrast such a new city, albeit a cleaner and safer one, as well. 

My family has a similarly complex relationship with one of Philadelphia's most interesting and controversial stories, Girard College.  Girard is actually a boarding school providing an entirely free education to mainly underprivileged children, 80% of whom are now African-American.  But the school was created by bequest of Stephen Girard, the fabulously wealthy financier who left $7.5 million (equivalent to many billions today) and no direct heirs when he died in 1831.  His will is famous for two stipulations: 1) that no religious figures ever be allowed to enter the campus; and 2) that the school bearing his name be for "poor, white, male orphans" only.  Both provisions were famously broken, the latter after much bitter legal wrangling in the 1960s.

My great-great-great-grandfather, Henry Duval Gregory, was Vice-President of Girard College from 1883-1892.  According to family lore, Gregory once gave a tour of the school to visiting Chinese dignitaries who spoke no English.  He solved the communication problem by talking to them in Latin, a language they all knew.  (Is it any wonder that I can be such a bookish geek sometimes, with genes like this?)  My grandmother was proud of our association with Girard College and gave me a print (pictured here) of Founder's Hall and the surrounding campus.  She was, however, distressed that the will was broken.  Her discomfort seemed to resonate less from sexist or racist reasons and more from her belief that one's stated final wishes should be legally binding forever.

I was interested to see that the story of Girard and his will is somewhat buried on the school's website; I had to dig into the Founder's Hall link to find it.  But in a Philadelphia magazine interview from last fall, new President Autumn Adkins tackles the issue directly.  I like her candor and her commitment to the principles of education for all.   I hope she will continue to restore Girard's legacy to prominence, for ultimately it proves that what unites us is indeed stronger than what divides us.